Cultural foundations are the same all over the world.

As we said in the section “The Magic of Smiles and Laughs,” facial expressions and smiles are interpreted equally almost everywhere. Paul Ekman from the University of California at San Francisco showed people from different countries photos with expressions of happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise. Most people unmistakably recognized expressions of happiness, sadness, and disgust. Almost everyone recognized the expression of surprise (in 20 countries out of 21), fear (in 19 countries out of 21) and anger (in 18 countries out of 21). The only exception was the Japanese, who took the expression of fear unanimously for surprise.
Ekman went to New Guinea to learn the customs of the tribes, practically cut off from the rest of the world. And here he got the same results. The islanders recognized all expressions, with the exception of fear, which they, like the Japanese, took for surprise.
Ekman photographed the same facial expressions in New Guinea, and then showed the pictures to the Americans, who unmistakably identified all the emotions. This once again proves that the smile and facial expressions have almost universal significance.
The fact that many expressions are innate is proven by Dr. Linda Camras of the University of De Paul in Chicago. Using the facial expression coding system, she recorded the reactions of American and Japanese babies. This system allows researchers to highlight and catalog pizza expressions. Dr. Kamras found that little Japanese and Americans express their emotions in exactly the same way.
Since in this book you and I are focused on the language of body movements, it must be said that all over the world signals have almost the same meaning. National differences are manifested in the size of personal space, in visual contact, frequency of touch and offensive gestures. The largest number of local gestures - in the Arab countries, in the countries of Asia and in Japan. National differences are too complex and extensive to cover in one chapter. Therefore, we limit ourselves to the basics that you will have to face abroad.
In Saudi Arabia, men can hold hands in public. This is a sign of mutual respect. But do not behave in this way in Australia, Texas or Liverpool.